Rise Again
by indelibles
Summary: It's a cycle that just keeps repeating. /Lydia, and pushing herself back up off the ground.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf.**

**A/N: This is my first time writing for Teen Wolf, so please let me know how it was! Thank you for reading. [Past Jackson/Lydia, past Allison/Lydia.]**

Even as a child, Lydia always was the strong one. While the other children cried when the scraped their knee or banged their elbow, she would stand back up without seeming to notice. And as she grew older, she began to be the one her friends relied on. Actually, though she stopped being the real Lydia and became fake Lydia somewhere along the way, she still was that one in high school. When Allison needed help, she was always there, and sometimes she'd help other people in unnoticeable ways, changing the subject or simply dropping a cryptic comment and leaving.

Back then, she hid herself under pretty clothes and smirks. She let her grades drop to B's and C's so that no one would notice just how exceptional she was at math and science, and she lost who she really was so that no one else could find it. She pulled on a mask which she would hide behind for a long time, and became a bit less smart and a bit more cruel. A bit more popular.

Maybe personality is more pliable than one would think. Because if you really try hard enough, think about everything you say and do, you can turn yourself into someone else. You can shape your very essence until it's unrecognizable. Some call it acting. She calls it living.

People have a tendency not to notice things that don't directly affect them. "If it doesn't hurt me, it's probably harmless," seems to be humankind's motto. We will turn a blind eye so that we don't have to see what might dirty our view of a person or place, ignore a scream out of fear that what we hear won't be what we want to hear. We will leave just so that we don't have to stay. We're funny that way.

But while others came and went, she stayed-still does, really. She plants her feet on the ground and flips her hair and if you want her to leave than goddamn it, you'll have to drag her kicking and screaming. Once she makes up her mind, there's no changing it.

She is, she supposes, a rock. Funny word, but close enough to the truth. For so long she stands, like a statue, like Atlas balancing the world upon fragile shoulders, like an angel with clipped wings. She stands, and she prepares to fall.

Looking back, she realizes that it wasn't so much that she was standing, and more that she'd been falling so long no one could tell the difference anymore. She was Lydia Martins, the perfect girl with the friends and the grades and the ability to shatter hearts like glass. No one stopped to wonder if maybe she broke hearts because hers was already broken. If maybe she thought that the shards could fill the gaping hole in her chest.

Jackson was the first person to see the real her, just random sparks of who she was. But those sparks were enough, mingling with their popularity and good looks, and the sparks ignited a fire. Their love was consuming, burning at them both with red-hot kisses and fireworks. Every touch was another light, warming their cold hearts. Delirious, fevered with love, burning each other to ashes.

And yes, they put the sun to shame, but when the fire dies out all that is left is the burn.

She will brush off the dust, and continue. She will fall again, this time knowing of all the risk, but deciding that it is worth it to try anyway, rising out of the ash like a phoenix.

Allison was everything Jackson was not; she was shared smiles and soft touches, ice cream and sunny days. She was calm and stable and maybe Lydia wasn't quite sure how to keep going with her, but she didn't need too. It wasn't past or future, just the present, the now, the _here. _But the present is only there for a second before it too escapes. Time passes, as inevitable as the tide rising.

Perhaps the now is good for a time, but when the sun sets and the clock chimes, it'll be nothing but a ghost.

She would laugh it off, pretending that there was nothing. She would pick up a new guy and drop him the next day. She would move on. She always did.

One by one around her, they would fall. Falling in love, falling out of love, and falling to the ground as their hearts broke. They would end, sometimes to begin again, sometimes to lay there forever.

But she would stand, tall and proud. She would stumble, and regain her balance. And when she fell, she would hide it.

And when she fell, she would rise again.

She always will.

That's just the way that the world works, and Lydia has known that for a long time. She understands that she will never get a break, that her life is a jumble and a mess and that though she can keep up an illusion of order, it will always be just that-an illusion. She recognizes that maybe it will take lifetimes before she removes her mask, and that maybe her greatest fear is that she won't like what's behind it. She gets that every time she falls she will pretend that it did not happen, and perhaps because of that no one will ever fall with her.

But she also knows that every plunge, every tear, every little crack, just makes her stronger. That every time she regains her balance, mends her sails, pulls herself together, she is stronger.

And maybe, just maybe, someday she will meet someone for whom she won't have to rise for. Someone who will help her up. Someone who will give her the wings she needs, so that they won't have to fall. So that together, they can fly.


End file.
